Plans are underway to develop a Winsor McCay Park in 2018 his hometown of Spring Lake, Michigan. The pioneering animator McCay drew his first commercial (prints for sale) illustration there at age 13 in 1880.

I just saw an exhibit on art of WWI (I saw it at The Frist Art Museum in Nashville). Among other exhibits, they had a screen running in a loop with "The Sinking of the Lucitania"by Windsor McCay. I had heard of this 11 minute film, but don't recall ever seeing it before.

The card introducing the film said the problem was that this was shown as part of the news reels as opposed to being included with the entertainment films.

It was great to finally see this - I guess Gertie the Dinosaur never got upgraded to news status!

McCay's first work for sale was actually another ship that sunk, an illustration of the steam passenger ship The Alpena. As noted above, he created it at age 13. Much about the 1880 drawing resembles McCay's style nearly 40 years later with "The Sinking of the Lusitania."

There's a tribute to Winsor McCay near the corner of Main and 9th Streets in downtown Cincinnati, in the form of a four-story, full-color reproduction of an episode of Little Nemo in Slumberland. McCay was an illustrator and editorial cartoonist for two Cincinnati newspapers, the Commercial-Tribune (1896-1900) and the Enquirer (1900-1903).